OCEAN TEMPERATURES AND CURRENTS. 233 



of Mexico was discovered, you will remember he utilized 

 the information obtained on this trip, took advantage of 

 this current, and boldly put out over an untried portion 

 of the Atlantic to carry the news home, and made a very 

 fast trip. 



This current was known from this time on, and for 

 two hundred and fifty years was utilized or avoided, 

 before any attempt was made to study it. Benjamin 

 Franklin was the first to study all the records he could 

 collect concerning it, and in 1772, supposing the current 

 to arise in the Gulf of IMexico, gave it the name which 

 has clung to it ever since, largely through his influence. 

 It was known and shown upon the maps as the Florida 

 current before this time, receiving its name from the 

 same fact that gave the name to the peninsula, viz. that 

 they were both discovered on Easter Sunday (Pascua 

 Florida). Since that time it has been most carefully 

 studied. About fifty years ago Maury collected all the 

 observations to be had, and gave a most substantial basis 

 for future work in his careful summary of the results. 

 Then came the Challenger trip which is so famous for 

 the new epoch made in the study of the oceans. Their 

 success was largely due to the new methods instituted. 

 This expedition has been followed by many others, to 

 the several oceans of the globe. In the Atlantic there 

 have been two great systematic attacks upon these 

 problems. First, that of the Norwegian expedition in 

 the North Sea, under Professor Mohn, and then the 

 studies, carried out by the Coast Survey under that 

 brilhant series of investigators, Sigsbee, Bartlett, and 

 Pillsbury, upon the temperatures and currents off our 

 own coast. The work of the Fish Commission steamer 



